L’Oursin chef/owner JJ Proville says his bistro's aesthetic—more brass chairs and soft lighting than exposed brick and reclaimed wood—was most influenced by a little coffee table book on French bistros. Cheesy, maybe, but the chef, raised partially in France, knows what he’s doing

Welcome to Wonderland uses Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as its source material, mixing in cabaret, improv, the circus, a bit of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the mirror scene from the Marx Brothers' comedy classic Duck Soup.

Amid floor-shaking violence and depictions of brutal, un-consenting sex acts – the scariest moment in Spectrum Dance Theater’s The Beastis when the lead woman (Kate Monthy), visibly panting from physical abuse she has su